Skip Navigation
Button that takes you to the Center for Educational Technologies home page. Button that takes you to the Virtual Design Center main page. Button that takes you to the Virtual Design Center main page. Header image that reads the Center for Educational Technologies: Virtual Design Center: designing for the next generation.		    
 

Button that takes you to the Overview Registration page. Button that takes you to the Step 2: Standards Alignment page. Button that takes you to the Step 1: Project Rationale page. Button that takes you to the Step 3: Investigation Question page. Button that takes you to the Step 5: Best Practices page. Button that takes you to the Step 6: Learning Technologies page. Button that takes you to the About the VDC page. Button that takes you to the Wrap-Up Activities page. Button that takes you to the Design Principles page. Button that takes you to the Introductory Activities page. Image map of the Virtual Design Center Navigation.

Button that takes you to the Discussion Board page.

Button that links to the NASA home page.
Image that reads Step 4: Assessment.

Main | Activity 4-1 | Activity 4-2  | Activity 4-3

ACTIVITY 4-1: select the standard

The multilevel assessment method aligns open-ended inquiry-oriented investigations to the content standards that educators use to organize their instruction.

1. Define the primary targeted content
You need to define the primary academic content targeted by your investigation. You may be introducing a new technology or idea to your learners, but you are likely doing so to help them learn standards-based content that they are expected to know. For example, if your investigation concerns resource recycling when growing food on an interplanetary mission, your targeted content would be the life science topic of resource recycling, rather than interplanetary travel. (Of course, it is helpful for learners to also learn about interplanetary travel!)

Additionally, your investigation may cover several different content areas. For example, if you are teaching about the mathematics of space travel, it will certainly involve physics as well. For the purposes of this exercise, you need to select one.

2. Pick one content standard
The process of locating the actual standard in step 2 should have prepared you for this process. Refer to the content standards you identified that align to your investigation. Most standards include general inquiry or process standards as well as more specific content standards. For the purpose of this exercise, pick a content standard, but take into account how your selected standard relates to more general inquiry and process standards.

For step 4 you locate one content standard (see examples below) that is aligned to the inquiry-oriented investigation that you are developing.

Deliverable 4-1: Targeted Content and Standards

Download the targeted content and standards outline and complete deliverable 4-1.

The following examples are taken from assessments developed for one of the investigation activities, Weather or Not?, from Exploring the Environment® (Cross & Hickey, 2005) and for the Operation Montserrat implementation for the NASA-sponsored Classroom of the Future’s Inspiration Challenge.

Continue to Activity 4-2.

Main | Activity 4-1 | Activity 4-2  | Activity 4-3

Overview & Registration | Introductory Activities

Step 1: Project Rationale | Step 2: Standards Alignment | Step 3: Investigation Question | Step 4: Assessment | Step 5: Best Practices | Step 6: Learning Technologies

Design Principles | Wrap-up Activities | About the VDC

 

Button that says contact us and allows you to email the virtual design team at vdc@cet.edu.

  
       
 

© 1999-2006 by Wheeling Jesuit University/Center for Educational Technologies®. 316 Washington Ave., Wheeling, WV, 26003-6243. All rights reserved. Privacy Policy and Terms of Use.